Acting Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, in his first visit to the national capital after leading his ruling alliance to an unprecedented second straight term in the state.
Rediff Labs analysed the past performance of the parties to develop this Sentiment Meter for the 2016 Tamil Nadu election.
While it is evident that the INDIA bloc has not shut its doors on Nitish Kumar, those within the NDA are hopeful that the JD-U's support base would benefit them as well
JMM leader Hemant Soren was sworn in as the 14th chief minister of Jharkhand in a grand ceremony in Ranchi, amid the presence of a galaxy of INDIA bloc leaders. This is Soren's fourth stint as chief minister. The JMM-led alliance won a majority in the recent assembly polls, securing 56 seats in the 81-member assembly.
Gandhi alleged that assembly and Lok Sabha polls were being "stolen" across the country and there was a "conspiracy" in Bihar to do the same through the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls.
Opposition parties in India have demanded the resignation of Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw after a stampede at New Delhi railway station killed 18 people. They blamed the government for "gross mismanagement" and accused them of "covering up" the death toll. The stampede occurred on Saturday night as passengers rushed to board trains for the Maha Kumbh festival in Prayagraj. The Congress, the Left, Trinamool Congress, and the Rashtriya Janata Dal have all criticized the government's handling of the situation, while BJP leaders have defended the government. The incident has highlighted the failure of the Railways and the government to make adequate arrangements for the large number of devotees travelling to Prayagraj.
'The 2020 assembly election was a Tejaswi Yadav election; whereas this is a Lalu Yadav election. It is his plan.'
The Delhi high court on Friday sought a response from the Centre, Election Commission of India, and 26 political parties on a petition seeking to restrain opposition parties from using the acronym INDIA for their alliance.
There is no confusion or dispute in the 'Mahagathbandhan' over Tejashwi Yadav being the main face for the Bihar chief minister's post, Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar said on Friday while asserting that the CM will be from the Rashtriya Janata Dal if the alliance gets a majority in the upcoming polls.
The caste survey in Bihar was conducted in two rounds between January 7-21, and April 15-May 15.
The bypolls were held in six constituencies - Naihati, Haroa, Medinipur, Taldangra, Sitai (SC), and Madarihat (ST) - following the resignation of MLAs who had vacated their assembly seats after securing victories in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Tushar Dedha of the ABVP won the post of DUSU president, defeating NSUI's Hitesh Gulia by a margin of 3,115 votes. Dedha got 23,460 votes and Gulia 20,345.
Leaders from 26 opposition parties, in power individually or in alliance in Delhi and 10 states, are meeting in Bengaluru to discuss strategy to take on the Narendra Modi-led NDA in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
'The Congress is trying to reinvent itself -- the caste census demand, OBC emphasis, the anti-corporate thrust, especially on Adani etc -- all this is not standard Congress strategy.'
The state anthem was played on the last day of the budget session and BJP MLA Jibesh Kumar Mishra was seen remaining seated through it.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren expanded his cabinet on Thursday, inducting 11 new ministers, including six first-timers and two women. The swearing-in ceremony was held at the Raj Bhavan in Ranchi. The new ministers include six from the JMM and four from the Congress. One minister is from the RJD. The expansion comes after the JMM-led alliance won the recent assembly elections with a comfortable majority. The cabinet expansion is expected to give the government a fresh impetus to push its agenda and accelerate development in the state.
This will be the 49-year-old JMM leader's fourth stint as chief minister. Soren retained the Barhait seat, defeating BJP's Gamliyel Hembrom by a margin of 39,791 votes in the recent assembly polls.
The Mahagathbandhan's seat-sharing announcement comes a day after the filing of nomination papers for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls was over.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Jan Suraaj founder Prashant Kishor has begun a fast unto death in Patna, demanding the cancellation of a recent examination held by the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC). Kishor's hunger strike comes after he gave a 48-hour ultimatum to the Nitish Kumar government to act on the demand, raised by aggrieved candidates who allege the exam was rigged. The administration has declared the hunger strike illegal as it is not the designated site for protests.
Majority of these constituencies are in Uttar Pradesh and the party that is on the third slot even as the counting is still underway on several seats is the Bahujan Samaj Party, a party neither with the National Democratic Alliance nor the opposition INDIA bloc.
Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United on Sunday exuded confidence that its national president, who was sworn in as Bihar CM for a record ninth time after forming a new government with the Bharatiya Janata Party, will win Monday's trust vote.
A senior Delhi Police officer, however, said no student was detained.
A total of 45 MLAs voted in favour of the confidence motion in the 81-member assembly.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal-United said it was the right time to withdraw the general consent to the CBI.
The governor accepted Kumar's resignation, and asked him to continue as caretaker CM till a new government is formed, they said.
According to the police headquarters in Patna, "more than a dozen police personnel and power department employees" sustained injuries in the incident that took place barely "100 meters away from Barsoi police station".
Inarguably the biggest gainer in the Grand Alliance, the CPI-ML, often working in the margins of mainstream politics, had 19 candidates in the fray, most of them students and youth leaders.
Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have been claiming that "more than 100 people" have died. Most media reports have put the death toll to be more than 50.
Nitish Kumar has again proven that he is a master of the art of changing governments.
The MLAs of the ruling JMM-led alliance exuded confidence of winning the floor test, while the opposition BJP asserted that the coalition would be defeated.
The Congress and the Left parties have not only extended support to the Samajwadi Party candidate but are also campaigning for him, in accordance with the spirit of the new opposition togetherness ahead of next year's general election.
According to the Election Commission data, 30 out of the state's 40 Lok Sabha seats went to the BJP-led coalition in the latest elections, a sharp drop compared with 39 in 2019 and lower than the tallies of 2014 (31) and 2009 (32).
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday hinted that a meeting of opposition leaders may take place in Patna after the crucial Karnataka assembly polls were over as many would be busy electioneering there.
Nineteen political parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, received over Rs 1,100 crore during assembly polls in five states and Union territories in 2021 and spent over Rs 500 crore, a big chunk of which went towards advertisements and travel expenses for star campaigners, a study said on Friday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday pulled off a stunning performance in Maharashtra winning a record number of seats to propel the party-led ruling Mahayuti alliance to a landslide victory while the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) stormed back to power in Jharkhand on the back of a spectacular showing by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha.
'Bihar today has erected a barrier against the BJP bulldozing the polity, the Constitution, and Opposition parties.'
Addressing a joint press conference after a meeting of 26 opposition parties in Bengaluru, Kharge said, "This was a very important meeting to save democracy and the Constitution in the interest of the people of the country."
The manifesto also vowed to carry out caste-based census in 2020-21.
Former Bihar MP Anand Mohan, who is serving a life sentence in the killing of Indian Administrative Service officer G Krishnaiah, is to be set free along with 26 others who have been lodged in different prisons of the state for more than 14 years.
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